A network is a collection of points and links between these points. Networks typically transfer items of material substance or information via a link from an origin point (OP) to a transit point (TP), where the item being transferred is routed to another link for transfer to a destination point (DP).
Many networks in the prior art use a symbolic address (SA) to designate the destination point and/or certain intermediate points. For example, transportation networks for mail have traditionally used a symbolic address (SA) that is specified by the originator of a shipment and that is purely geographical in significance.
In a typical mail network operation, a user first addresses an item with an explicit SA, indicating where the item is to be sent (a destination SA), and the user's own explicit SA, indicating where the item was sent from (an origin SA), and then places the item in a mailbox or parcel drop box (a physical OP), effectively consigning the item to the transportation network. The postal service will then carry the item to a post office. There, the destination SA is read, and provided the destination SA is legible and meets certain criteria of the network, the office sorts the item according to the link or series of links that optimize the delivery of the item. The item is then transferred across the selected links and delivered to the DP associated with the destination SA.
This example of the prior art ultimately designates a geographical location via symbols that are known to, and in fact generated by, the human originator or some agent for the human originator. This is often awkward or slow to use in the prior art because the originator does not always know the necessary destination SA, or even geographical DP, before sending a shipment, and must expend significant time and effort to determine one or both of them. Moreover, even though the originator may know the street address of an office of a business, the same originator may not always know the distinct street address of the repair department or other departments that are appropriate for a particular shipment. In some cases, the originator lacks timely destination address information, and the particular group or division has relocated to a different geographical location and, hence, destination SA that is not known to the originator at the time of shipment. In other cases, the originator may only know only a partial or ambiguous address, such as “XYZ Corporation”. Moreover, certain SAs are not accessible to all networks, such as the post office box number that is not accessible to a non-postal parcel delivery service. In the prior art of transportation, there is no network solution to this problem and such items are usually undeliverable.